LATEST NEWS

August 2012
The latest initiative of the Newport and Zolotarevo Twinning Association saw a two-week Language School taking place in Newport’s twin village of Zolotarevo. Marion Heredia (Newport) and Catherine Rice (Dundee) spent two weeks at the school running the Language School for two groups of 15 teenage pupils each afternoon and also assisting the teachers of the English language department in the mornings. Marion said “We were treated like royalty wherever we went and people in the village fondly remember the visit that some of them made to Newport in 2000.” Teachers and pupils at the school greatly appreciated the classes and it is hoped that other Language Schools will take place in the future.

April 2011
At the April meeting of the Association Marion Heredia stood down as Chairperson and Stewart Cram was elected in her place. Marion has down a power of work for the Twinning Association during her time in office and we are indebted to her and she will be missed!  Stewart who takes over from Marion is no stranger to NAZTA having being involved with the original project back in 1998 and looks forward to continuing the close links with our friends in Zolotarevo.

March 2011
Following on from Tim Brett and Marion Heredia's visit to Zolotarevo we received a letter from the Headmaster of Zolotarevo Secondary School thanking Newport for the help we give to the School and the village - click here for more

February 2011
The AGM of the Newport and Zolotarevo Twinning Association takes place on Wednesday 23rd February 2011 at 7:30 in the Manna Cafe, Cupar Road Newport.  Come and find out about the Assocation and its work, a warm welcome awaits you.  Drinks and nibbles will be served after the meeting.

December 2010
Taybridgehead Councillor Tim Brett and Marion Heredia, Chairman of the Newport and Zolotarevo Twinning Association have just returned from a fact-finding visit to Newport’s twin town of Zolotarevo in Ukraine.  Their aim was to investigate how the people of Zolotarevo would like to see the links between the two communities develop.

Zolotarevo is in the Transcarpathian region in the western Ukraine and has an interesting history having been part of many different countries over the last two centuries.It was part of the USSR until it gained its independence as part of Ukraine in 1991.

It took nearly 2 days travelling to reach Zolotarevo as Tim and Marion decided to fly to Budapest and travel by road from there, staying the first 2 nights in the university town of Uzghorod to meet some of the students who had previously visited Newport and also to make contact with Svitlana Slava who was the one of the original driving forces back in 1998.
Marion and Tim stayed in the home of one of the teachers of English at the school.  Marion said “We were treated like royalty where ever we went and were moved to see how hard-working the people of Zolotarevo are.  Many parents work in the Czech Republic, Italy, Russia or in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital city and leave their children in the care of their extended families for months at a time”. 

Tim said that the people in Zolotarevo clearly valued the links that they had with Newport and we met a number of people who had very positive memories of their visit to Newport in the millennium year of 2000 but the opportunities there were much less than most people have here and many people did several jobs in order to make ends meet . Most families had a small holding on which they grew a lot of their own food and also kept some animals, like the crofting existence which we still have in some parts of Scotland

Tim and Marion hope that it might be possible to establish a Student Exchange scheme with Madras College as well as provide a Language Assistant to work in the School.  A Summer School may well be something that can be considered in the future.  The people of Zolotarevo were very keen to have a native speaker of English to work at the school.

View Archived News